[George W. Bush]

It's the great tragedy of our 20th/21st century lives - to have become nothing more than consumers of others' creative efforts.

Personally, I think I'm too oriented toward mass culture myself but I know a lot of people who really can do absolutely nothing for themselves. Not just music but handcraft, art, etc. I just think it's sad because they're not stupid or lacking some talent in some area. Almost everyone has potential. The sad thing is that they sell themselves short for the cheap and easy thing.

It still makes me wonder remembering that an individual who appeared to us so stiff, so humourless, so uncomfortable in his skin - Richard Nixon, was actually a pretty good piano player. What to do?

For a second, I thought you might know me in real life. ; )

I guess we remember Nixon as a crook who happened to play the piano well. But Truman was better known and there are a few clips of him playing. I've never seen a clip of Nixon playing but I wouldn't be surprised if he was quite good. He was mentally devious, something of an artistic quality.

[Revolting cat!]

You're starting to hit too close to home talking about people "who can do absolutely nothing for themselves"! "What to do?" was actually a rhetorical question I was asking myself, and the "tragedy" I was speaking of above was my own as well, I'm afraid. Frankly, I don't know anyone who's immune to the art consumerist disease. Maybe that white blues guitar player I met last weekend at a farmer's market is. I looked at him with so much envy. Be that as it may, I thank you for taking the old MP3 downloading discussion to another level in more ways than one.